


Red

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: #BuckyNat Week, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 18:44:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14026401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: There was whispering in the walls.





	Red

**Author's Note:**

> Written for buckynat week using [medeafive's](http://medeafive.tumblr.com/) prompt: shadows

There was whispering in the walls.

It was _cold,_ the kind that sank into the bones and nearly set the blood to freezing. It was the cold that could steal away breath, could shut down the mind until nothing functioned.

At least, that was the theory of it.

His mind didn't stop functioning. It was slower, sluggishly trying to process what was happening around him. He found this kind of half sleep almost comforting, almost soothing. The shock of cold used to be painful, used to be a reminder of everything that was different. There was no one there, nothing, and it used to be a sharp and bitter lack of presence. He tried to remember sometimes what he missed more, brother-friend-comrade or lover-colleague-master, but it didn't matter in the end. He was cold, they were away.

The vivid red was like fire, and despite the cold he grew warmer. Along with the red, he remembered the touch of her fingers over his skin, the hypersensitive mass of scars he carried, the scrape of teeth and nails. It was hazy, fragments of memory that slid around and knocked into each other in wrong shapes and odd ways. She was young, she wasn't, she was with him, she fought him, she let him go.

_She let him go._

He couldn't shiver in the cold, he was frozen too well at this point. He couldn't move, couldn't do more than dream, and he found his dreams circling back to her. Or maybe this wasn't a dream at all, just shifting shadows that his mind created to make the cold bearable. After all, how could someone love him, when he had no name, when he was nothing but a living shadow himself? He was a ghost story, they told him, laughter in their voices and this same chilled cold in their hearts. He was their fist, their ghost, their shadow. No one could find him, because he didn't actually exist.

Red that color should exist, he was sure of it, but he didn't know how he knew that. It could be a shimmery red, with golden highlights, or red the color of freshly spilled arterial blood. Sometimes the red was hidden away under brown or black or blonde, but he knew it was supposed to be red.

 _Sloppy,_ an older woman's voice said, sharp with disapproval. It hadn't been directed at him, he knew that, but to the red hair and the stooped shoulders and the resignation in the body next to him. _Pretending to fail. You never fail._

No answer that he remembered; the shadows were back and obscuring that fragment of memory. Or dream. Or something. The clearest fragment was red hair spread across a white pillow, fanned out above laughing green eyes, pleasure and happiness that was all for him.

_She let him go._

Did she think he could escape? Kind of her, to think him so capable, when the cold and the electricity and the personnel all held him tight. Was that really a touch he remembered? Did she really press her fingers to his skin, pushing against his flesh, lowering her lips to the tangled mass of scars and declared herself in love with him. _Love is for children,_ that older woman scoffed, anger threading her voice. It didn't matter who heard her now. _You are not a child!_

She had never been a child. He had been one, once upon a time. That time was shrouded and distant, not a place that he remembered very well.

They had been ripped apart. He was back in the cold, frozen, pulled away, down into the shadowy dark. She was spun outward, feet clumsy and heavy, and he wanted to correct her footing. They were taking her away, sending her to be someone else, dozens else, and he was in the cold and the dark.

There was whispering in the walls. It might have been his memories.

He hoped they were. At least the memories of red were pleasant and hopeful for the most part, and helped him feel like more than a shattered mess of shards. He'd made her laugh and smile and love again, and for a while, both of them had actually been human.


End file.
